USATE Rd. 6: Ballroom Dancing With the Stars

The last round started a little late since a couple of matches went down to the bitter end. Trying to get at the pairings was insane. It looked like a sale at Filene's Basement. Except instead of hordes of crazed bargain hunters it was hordes of crazed chess players. I think some teams sent all four members up to find their pairings. I pushed my way through, and found our pairing. It was another one of those pairings where my team "Rook Around the Clock Tonight" was paired next to "Rook Around the Clock". We got paired way up against a team with 2038 average. We were on board 27 which seems to be in the cold section of the ballroom. I actually had my sweater on the entire time. Thanks to Deren Getz for taking this picture.



On the board next to us was Joel Benjamin's team "3:10 to Yermo". Abby Marshall was also on this team. They played the IS 318 Queens. An all girls team. I've gotten my butt kicked by a couple of those young ladies, bt they weren't able to match wins with GM Benjamin and company.

The 3 Grandmaster team of Zviad Izoria, Eugene Perelshteyn and Roman Dzindzichashvili with a 100 on board four faced off against Marc Arnold's team. Marc drew on top board, and Danny Rohde won in 7 moves on board four. Their teammates did not fair so well against the other grandmasters. So GGGg won the tournament. Personally I think it's totally unfair to allow a team like that. It takes the fun out of trying to come up with a well balanced team with the right blend of titled players and other ratings. Second of all, for the player on the opponent's fourth board it's like they didn't even get a game. It's like getting a forfeit win, except that one doesn't have to sit at the table for an hour.

The little kid on 4th board had a forfeit win and 5 losses. He'll get a clock for his trouble. I hope the Grandmasters gave him a few lessons in return for being their sacrificial lamb. They also should give him the team plaque.

Our match started out with great hopes for a good round. Our board one won his game, and our board four was actually up the exchange and pawn. I was holding my own against the 2060 I was playing. I got a crappy position out of the opening but somehow I defended pretty well and for a long time. Note to self: Next time take with the b pawn. Third board lost so it was coming down to what would happen on two and four. Unfortunately fourth board hung his rook so was now down a piece for a pawn. He played tough but eventually he lost. So now it's just me left. Unfortunately I lost a pawn, and was in a rook and pawn ending. The only thing in my favor was the clock, but even that wasn't helping.

Here is the game with no analysis. I'm too tired to go crazy with it.




Though a couple things to note. On move 28 I gave him double isolated pawns on the kingside, but they were keeping my kingside majority from doing anything unless I wanted to trash my pawn structure.

The interesting position was at move 43 when he played Ra8. I could not see any reasonable defense to Rh6. Then my move 45 of h5 was a big mistake. Somebody came by and asked me something. I don't think he realized I was still playing. The discussion was not well timed, and threw me off. I was hallucinating about possibly giving check with f5 followed by check with g5. I'm forgetting that g5 is no longer protected by the h pawn.

The game lasted almost five and half hours. I could have played all the way down to the bitter end, but I lost a second pawn and he now had 3 connected passed pawns on the queenside and I had one lonely pawn on the kingside that was going nowhere. I had a pounding headache and since only my winning would have salvaged the match I finally called it a night. It was weird being one the few games left in the ballroom. The crowds were all down in skittles room where they were giving out the awards as results came in. One thing about playing so long is there's not much noise and nobody's bumping into my chair.

Our team ended out 3 and 3. That was certainly better then last year when we kept losing to random lower averaged teams with weird board configurations. My record was slightly worse this year. 1 win, 3 losses and 2 draws. Last year was 1 win, 2 losses and 3 draws. Somehow this year was more satisfying because my losses were hard fought, and we didn't lose to any low rated players. We only got kicked out the ballroom for two rounds. And we did not end out in outer Mongolia, or worse the skittles roo. The lowest scoring teams played in there. That's as bad as the year my team got sent to another hotel to play.

Tomorrow I'm off to Seville, Spain. I missed this but Joe Ippolito said that during the speeches on Sunday night that he made mention of my delaying my trip bya few days to make the tournament. I wasn't even in the room since we took our sweet time leaving Ruth Cris.

Tomorrow I'll post some more pictures. I keep switching back and forth between my PC and my Mac to do these posts. The Chess Base stuff is easier on the PC. The pictures are mostly on the Mac.

Thanks for following along.

USATE Rd. 5: Still Ballroom Dancing

We're still in the ballroom. It wasn't a bad spot to be. At least I wasn't straddling two tables and the traffic behind my chair wasn't so bad. I think part of it was there weren't a bunch of NYC kids playing near us. When you're paired near a school team all their friends come to watch so there is always lots of people walking by.

We were paired down against a team with an average rating of 1425. It was a funny make up. Two adults rated 1800 to 2000, and two kids included one rated about 700. I played an 1890. I was up and down like crazy. Note to self: Don't drink two large cups of tea before the round. Around move 11 I had left the table. When I walked back into the ballroom my opponent is walking out the door. He's says "I've made my move. Do you want a draw?" I said "No, I'm here to play chess." The round had only been going for a 1/2 hour or so. What was that all about?

I'm doing this at a public computer because I don't have any more access on my laptop. I'm not paying another $9.95 to blog for an hour. I can't put my game in at the moment. It was an interesting game. I ended out drawing when I chucked my pawn advantage. Stupid ass move where he just takes the pawn and if I take his bishop, he takes mine. Grrrr. I really wanted the win. Our new fourth board won against the 700. Silvio was in a dead draw. Mike had an easy win at that point. My opponent offers me a draw after I dropped the pawn. At that point I took it since now my position was slightly worse even though the material was even.




Note: I put this game in after I got home. I'm glad I did not analyze it at the tournament. I would have been even more annoyed for missing 32. Na6 which wins the b pawn.

One round to go. I have no idea if we're in contention for the Under 1800 prize or not. We're going to get paired way up again. We'll see what happens. It would be nice to win the match, but easier said then done.

Don't ask me who's winning the tournament. There were 6 teams that were 4-0, including the 3 grandmaster team. Now there are two teams 5-0 because one match was a draw. I've been kind of oblivious to the rest of the tournament. Maybe this round I'll get in the room early enough to use my own set. Maybe I can get some pictures from the top boards.

There's still one match going and it's almost 3:30. It's a sea of humanity out there!

Later! People want the computer.

USATE Rd 4: Worse Seat In The House Part 2

Reassembler has a post on his blog about playing on Board 39 in the ballroom. It's noisy there with the doors banging closed and the constant chatter from the foyer. "Chess Nuts Boasting in an Open Foyer". Playing second board at Board 37 sucked big time. Board 37 is nowhere near 39. It took me awhile to find the board. The number sequence is totally wacked out and it's actually on the other side of the room by the podium. It's actually fairly quiet there, but I felt like I was playing on a major fault line. Our board is sitting on two tables and they're slightly split apart as you can see from the picture.


A round like this begs the question. What's so great about playing in the main ballroom? It's crowded, noisy, and people always bumping your chair as they squeeze through. It's even worse when people are trying to get past my chair because I usually have the chaired pushed way back because I'm either kneeling on the chair or standing over it.

This picture doesn't really show how cramped we were because board three was done when I took it. Alan kept putting his captured pieces near me. I was tempted to ask him if I could drop them on my board in place of a move. Oh right! The Bughouse tournament was later. Alert viewers might notice that black is missing a bishop. Unfortunately it's not on the h file which got cut out of the picture. It was not a good night for us. 1/2 - 3 1/2 was the final score.

When one plays as many one time control tournaments as I do, 40/2 G/60 can seem like an eternity. There were a number of moves where my opponent spent 10 to 15 minutes on it. Those are the times I go wandering around the room, get a drink of water or just go out and contribute to the noise in the foyer. When we hit 40 moves he had less then 2 minutes left. I had over 45 minutes. Perhaps if I had used as much time as he had maybe my position would not have been so ugly.

If had not been a team tournament I would have resigned much sooner then I did. I played on until I was going to lose my final pawn and he'd be up a piece and two pawns. At that point I knew there would be no sudden death implosions. At this point I was ready to be sociable and catch up with some friends.

Jerry Hanken made the trip east. He would normally be playing in the USATW in Los Angeles. I was quite surprised to see him out here. He's playing on a team with other chess journalists. They did a 50's related costume of the old style fedoras and suspenders. I look pretty happy despite losing in 4 1/2 hours.


Jerry talked about the differences between the USATE and USATW.

1. 200 more teams in the East.

2. Old or slow moving people get trampled by the hoards.

3. The team names and costumes are more clever and thought out in the East.

The winning team name was "Not Searching For Bobby Fischer Anymore." I'm not sure I have it exactly right. I have no idea who won best chess gimmick. Our team missed the festivities in the ballroom because we were enjoying our dessert and coffee at Ruth Cris, and paying the bill. The restaurant review will follow in a later post.

Gotta stop now. Next round is in 7.5 hours. I need my sleep.

USATE Rd. 3 Giving "BU Winning Chances" Lots of Losing Chances

Sometimes I'm not sure it's such a good idea to know too much about your opponent's team. The rating range went from 1503 down to their alternate at 500. The alternate played this round. One would think that with such big rating differences from top to bottom that we would cruise the match quickly. We cruised, but we must have signed up for the long tour. It was not easy. It seemed at one point I looked up and we were down pawns on every board except mine. All I could think of was we'd have a repeat of last year's third round fiasco that sent us in exile to the outer Mongolia corridor.

Mike and Silvio were the first two to finish. Alan had another one of those crazy games where he was down two pawns early. Eventually he won a rook for a bishop but the opponent had these pesky looking passed pawns on the queenside. It was a crazy looking position with back rank mate threats for the opponent, but Alan came through again with another nice finish.

Once again I had one those boring looking games where I thought I had nothing. However a few small mistakes on my opponent's part gave me the opening I needed. Here's the crucial position:

I had just played 32. g4. He played 32... f6? This move is terrible for black. He spends rest of the game playing a knight down because it never gets back in play. Better would be 32... Ng5+ 33. Bxg5 hxg5. Up to this point I had been fiddling around waiting to see what was going to happen on the other boards. Once Silvio and Mike won I can take a draw, but I figured I had more play because of his dead knight. The game continued, 33. h4 Kf8 34. Bd2 Ke8 35. Bb4 Kf7 36. Rb7+ Kg8 37. Rb5 Kf7 38. Ba5 Rd7 39. Kf4 Nf8 At this point he picked up the knight puts it on f8 and before letting go he takes the move back and tries playing Ke8. I called the touch move. (Never try to slip a touch move by a TD.) I'm not sure this was critical tempo for him or not but he does waste time moving the knight back.

40. Bb4 Nh7 41. Rb8 g5+ 42. fxg6+ This was my second en passent in this game, and third one in the tournament for me. I think that's more en passents then all of last year combined. 42...Kxg6 43. Rg8+ Kf7 44. Rb8 Kg7 45. Kf5 Kf7 46. Bc5 Kg7 47. Ke6 Rf7 48. Kxd5 f549. gxf5 Rxf5+ 50. Ke6 Rf6+ 51. Ke5 Kg6 52. Be7 Ra6 53. d5 Kf7 54. d6 I debated about this move for awhile. I was concerned intially that he'd start get a bunch of checks, but it's easy for me to come towards the rook. The bishop on d6 pawn are working well together.

54...Ra5+ 55.Kd4 Ke6 56. Rh8 Rd5+? 57. Kc4 Rf5 (If he plays 57...Nf6 58 Bxf6 Kxf6 59. Kxd5.) 58. Rxh7 Rf7 59. Rxf7 Kxf7 60. Kd5 Ke8 61. Kc6?! I was so concerned about stalemate I missed forced mate in 2. 61. Ke6 h5 62.d7# He resigned.

So we won 4-0. This should put us back in the main ballroom with the big boys. Hopefully I can get some good pictures from the costume contest. My next post will be the food review after dinner at Ruth Cris Steakhouse.

Pre-Round 3 USATE Random Thoughts

I got up to check our pairing for this morning's round. I messed up on my pairing prognostication skills. I thought we'd get paired up. I was wrong. We get paired down against a team with a 1226 average. In the second round they beat up on some team of most likely little kids. Hopefully we can dispatch this team with ease so that we can end our exile from the main ballroom.

Tonight is the team name and costume contest so it's definitely a round that one wants to be playing in the ballroom to watch the action. Unlike reassembler, I haven't come up with my team name guesses. Maybe I'll take a closer look at some of the names and add them to this post. I can't believe there's a team with 3 grandmasters and 200 on board four. I think that really sucks. Hopefully they'll reinstate the 1000 point rule. I have no problems with grandmasters playing in the event. I think it's exciting for the players who get to play them, and exciting for spectators when they start facing each other in later rounds. However I think it's grossly unfair to stack the team with 3 grandmasters. I like it better when teams have to work hard to put together a balanced line up to stay under 2200. Also I feel bad for 4th board on the opposing team that has to play someone with a 200 rating. What a waste of time.

One of the great things about this tournament is seeing old friends. Yesterday I was pleasantly surprised to see Shirley Ben-Dak. She was just visiting for a few hours and then would be heading back to Israel where she is attending college. She just dropped in to surprise all her friends. She played on my all girls team "The Vera Menchik Brigade" back in 1996. She was in second grade and played board two. Board three was Alanna Katz, and fourth board was Amanda Clare. Amanda is not playing chess at the moment, but Alanna is here so we did 12 year reunion picture.


The picture we're pointing at is the back view of our team shirts that we wore and modeled for the costume contest. We look like we're all the same height, but actually they were on the stage and I wasn't. Now they're my height and if we played as a team now, I'd be board three.

Another tradition at this tournament is getting together after the second round and playing hearts until late into the night. Here's the hearts gang.

We've been playing hearts back since the days of the tournament being in Somerset. We play some goofy variations such as hitting 100 on the nose drops the player back to zero. Nobody did that, but I shot the moon and took 26 off my score. Probably not a good idea since it made the game last another hour. My hearts handle for online hearts is Lunaqueen. (Moon queen.) I love to shoot.

Enough for now. Time to think about chess. 30 minutes to round three.

USATE Rd. 2: Board 1.....In the Small Ballroom

Quarter pairings are a pain in the butt. We get paired way up in round one. I told the guys we would probably get paired down against a team rated mid 1300s who won in the first round, and that we probably get booted out of the main ballroom. Sure enough our opponent's average rating was 1347. Our opponents were four high school kids who got paired way down in round one. We played on board 81. Boards 1-80 are in the main ballroom.

Playing in one of the side rooms is like being in regular weekend swiss. You don't get to be part of the funny give aways that Steve Doyle does, and you don't get to see who is the best dressed for Saturday evening. In fact we could hear the goings on from the main room as we had started our games for round two. It could be worse. We could be in the conference center wing with all the little kiddie teams. Years ago when I played board one on a team with little kids we would spend the entire tournament there. I used to call it playing in outer Mongolia. Our big moment would come if we made it into one of the rooms across from the small ballroom.

Our first board won in about 15 minutes. That's always nice to get a quick point early on. Later our fouth board would draw his lower rated opponent. I was having a totally boring game, so I spent a lot of time watching board three. At one point my teammate Alan had sac'ed a rook and his opponent had a passed pawn that looked unstoppable. Alan could have forced a draw. I'm thinking to myself, "Take the damn perpetual! What the hell are you looking at? I can probably draw and we'll win the match!" He doesn't do that. Now I'm thinking to myself that we're going to end out drawing the match and be banished to outer Mongolia with the Munchkins. He played beautifully and won his game. I offered my opponent a draw in a totally boring locked up position so we won 3-1. Phew!

USATE Rd. 1: Disassembled by Reassembler 4 - 0 :-(

Greetings from Parsippany! So in my Wacky Wednesday post from two weeks ago Blunderprone left me a comment keep an eye for Reassembler and Globular at the tournament. So what were the odds that my team would get paired against their team? I guess pretty good because that's what happened. It was ugly. We were out rated on the top 3 boards by 300 - 400 points each. Fourth board was only 100 points, but the the result was the same. I was the first one done. It got kind of ugly at the end. Here's the game in all it's splendid ugliness.



I forgot my SD card and reader, so I had to actually input the moves into Chess Base by hand. Damn I get spoiled rotten. I guess if I was going to forget something, that was the least of my worries. I remembered my set, board, clock, reading glasses, iPod, chocolate and Mon Roi. What else do I really need?